Life in the Scriptures has a new format that will spend a Year in the New Testament, in a book-by-book journey reading one chapter per day. This approach enables busy people to have daily Bible readings, and to increase their familiarity with the people, places, and teachings of the New Testament. It is a profitable and helpful Bible study method. May God bless it to you.

December 15, 2013

Most people live for what Francis
Schaeffer called, "personal peace and affluence." If they worship God, or believe in Him at
all, they consider Him as one of many articles in their possession to add to their
peace and affluence. But this is nothing
new; the Jews in this passage of Isaiah were doing it seven hundred years
before the time of Christ. They gave God
lip service, but lived for themselves.
Yet, they believed God was satisfied with them, and that their
half-hearted participation in the ceremonies and rituals of their religion was
more than sufficient to appease God. For
generations God called them back to Him.
Prophet after prophet was sent to tell them of His love and warn them of
His wrath. They ignored God's prophets,
preferring instead to appoint prophets of their own choosing who would tell
them what they wanted to hear, rather than the Word of God. So God, in Isaiah 29 says even Jerusalem, and even the Temple will be destroyed and leveled by
military conquest, along with the people.
Ariel is Jerusalem,
and God says He will cease sending true prophets, allowing the city to be
continually led astray by false prophets.
He will pour out on the people a spiritual slumber. The word of God will be unintelligible to
them. The wisdom of the wise and the
understanding of the prudent will disappear, and the people will follow fools
and liars.

Sadly, this sounds terribly like
what is happening in the Church today.
Many have deserted Biblical faith and chosen to place themselves under the
tutelage of false teachers. Others offer
lip service to God, while treating Him more as their servant than as their
God. If God was willing to level the Temple and conquer the
Jews with war, can we expect Him to let such sin go unchastised today?

Isaiah's news is not all bad,
however. Even in wicked Jerusalem there are still righteous people
who seek and love God. They, and many
who repent of their sins and return to God, will be blessed, even amid the
suffering and conquest of Jerusalem.

Tuesday

Morning
- Ps. 90, Is. 30:8-17, Mk. 5:21

Evening
- Ps. 91, Is. 30:18-26, Rev. 19:1-16

It seemed to the king of Judea that the whole world was at war and that his tiny
country was going to be drawn into it and destroyed by it. In the east, the Assyrians were rising to
power. Ruthless warriors, they would
soon conquer most of the other nations in the area. Syria
and Israel were trying to
fight Assyria, and wanted Judea to join
them. Their kings were joining forces to
attack Judea in an attempt to force the
kingdom to join them. To the west, Egypt was
preparing its own powerful war machine to do battle with the Assyrians. Judea lay
right in the middle of these two super powers, and both of them wanted it. Believing Egypt would be the better ally, the
King of Judea attempted to make a treaty with the pharaoh. This was an arrangement the Egyptian king
would gladly accept. It allowed Egypt to put soldiers in Judea
and use the Judean army and the Judean countryside as a buffer in case of an
Assyrian attack. To the pharaoh, Judea
was useful only as a place to fight Assyria. He would gladly sacrifice it to keep the
horrors of war out of his own territory.
That is why one of the major points of Isaiah 30 is that there is no
hope for Judea in Egypt
(vs. 7).

But Judea's
real problem was that they were seeking their security in the things of the
world instead of in God. They looked to
the king of Egypt
to deliver them, rather than to the King of Kings who holds the stars in His
hand and raises or casts down nations as He pleases. Isaiah's book has many passages beseeching
the Jews to return to God and promising His protection and blessing if they
will. But this was a message the Judeans
did not want to hear. They wanted
prophets who would tell them happy things and prophesy peace to them
(vss.9-11). They did not want to hear a
message that required faith and holiness.
They did not want to hear any preaching that required them to turn away
from sin, or required them to find fulfillment in God instead of the
possessions, pleasures, and amusements of this life. Thus, the Judeans cast God aside in a vain
attempt to cling to their "happiness" in earthly things, and, as a
result, they lost both (vss. 12-14).

Yet the unfaithfulness of Judea will
not annul the promise and purpose of God for Israel. God called Abraham and his descendents to be
the people through which the Saviour would come in the fullness of time. Their unfaithfulness could not stop God's
purpose, nor had everyone in Judea turned away
from God. Verses 15-33 tell of God's
grace on the remnant who abides in Him, and of the fulfillment of His purpose
for them in the Kingdom of the Messiah.

Ember Wednesday

Morning
- Ps. 1 & 15, Jer. 23:9-15, Lk. 12:35-48

Evening
- Ps. 92, Jer. 23:16-22, Mt. 28:16

Today is a day of prayer for
ministers. The readings from Jeremiah
deal with false prophets and it is intentionally chosen to amplify the Epistle
for the Third Sunday in Advent, which begins in 1 Corinthians 4:1. A faithful steward preaches the Bible. He does not add to it, subtract from it, or
alter it in any way. As an ambassador
for Christ, he delivers his Sovereign's Word, not his own. This is not as easy as it sounds, for there
is always a temptation to preach what people want to hear, and they don't
always want to hear the truth. Please
pray that your minster will be found faithful.

Thursday

Morning
- Ps. 96, Is. 32:1-4, 15-20, Mk. 6:1-6

Evening
- Ps. 93 & 98, Is. 33:1-10, Rev. 20:1-6

We live in a fallen world, and the
evidence of sin is all around. Fools are
considered wise. The wicked are envied and called good. Cheaters are considered generous. The ungodly are called spiritual. This is nothing new. It is the trend of mankind from the
beginning, and it was true even of the Old Testament chosen people of God. But
it will not always be this way. Today's reading looks to a time when a
righteous King will rule a righteous people, and there will be justice, and
wisdom, and generosity, and godliness.
In one sense Isaiah 32 and 33 look forward to the end of time, when
God's people dwell with Him in a place where they will see and know God face to
face, where the desire to sin is gone forever, and where the peace of God will shine like a
thousand suns. In another sense these
chapters look to the era of the New Testament Church. In the Church we live in the Dominion of the
King of Righteousness, and everything the Old Testament says about a future of
peace and blessing is fulfilled in the Church.
She is that new humanity, a people restored to God's original purpose
for mankind, a Kingdom of peace, generosity, respect, wisdom, and love. This is what makes the local church so
important. Through it we participate in
the new humanity. Through it we live in
the new Kingdom. Judea learned there was
no hope in Egypt,
and the Church must learn there is no hope in the world. We must stop looking to "Egypt" and
start looking to Christ.

There is also chastisement in these
chapters, and just as God chastised Israel He will not hesitate to chastise the
New Israel. Remembering that all Holy
Scripture was written for our learning, let us make every effort to "read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest" the message of these chapters.

Ember Friday

Morning
- Ps. 40:1-15, Jer. 23:23-32, 2 Cor. 5:2

Evening
- Ps.51, Jer. 26:1-13, 2 Tim. 3:14-4:8

The faithfulness required of God's
ministers is absolute. No man is to take
the office of the ministry of his own accord, nor is he to speak his own ideas
to the people. It is not his calling to
tell people what he would like God to say or the way he would like God to
be. Such preaching is only the deceit of
their own heart (Jer. 23:25). Yet the
Bible seems to imply that the majority of ministers are of this type. How can a minister know he teaches God's Word
rather than his own views? He must
ensure that he teaches and believes what the Church has always believed. This is not as difficult as it sounds, for
there is a very visible body of Biblical doctrine that has been held by all
true ministers of God from the Apostles to this very day, and, no matter what
other credentials he may have, a man who teaches or believes contrary to this body
of doctrine is a false minister. So
ember Friday affords ministers the opportunity to examine their core beliefs
and practices. If they find themselves
out of accord, they have a chance to repent and return to the truth.

The faithfulness required of the
people is also absolute. Ember Friday
also gives the "laity" a chance to ensure that they are hearing the
Word of God. God would not call and
equip ministers if He did not want people to attend the services of the Church
and hear the Word. God would not be
against those who preach false doctrine if He didn't want people hear and do
the truth. So the message of Ember Days
speaks to everyone on both sides of the pulpit. To the preacher it says,
"Speak Truth." To the congregation it says, "Hear
Truth." Let us all do whatever is
necessary to obey..

Ember Saturday

Morning
- Ps. 42 & 43, Mal 2:1-9, Mt. 9:35-10:15

Evening
- Ps.103, Mal. 3:1-6, Heb. 4:14-5:10

There is a tendency to belittle
authority today, and this tendency finds its way even into the Church. People want to be their own authority,
sometimes even placing themselves above the Bible. There is a growing trend toward Churchless
Christianity and a growing trend toward Creedless Christianity, in favour of
self-directed "Christianity."
This goes against everything the Bible teaches, and we must all make the
decision whether we believe the Bible or our own ideas. Remember what God said of those who believe
their own way in yesterday's reading (Jer. 23:25). In Malachi God reminds His priests of
Levi. Levi loved and respected God. The truth was in his mouth. He walked in the ways of God with peace and
equity (2:4-7). All ministers must strive to be like Levi. Their lips should keep knowledge. People should be able to hear the word of God
from their mouths, for they are called to be messengers of the Lord of Hosts
2:7). The priest who departs from God's word corrupts the faith and causes
people to stumble. What a sad day it
will be when a priest stands before God only to find those who followed him
followed the wide road that leads to destruction. How bitter his eternity will
be knowing he led people into hell.

In
1 Corinthians 4:1 and 2, the Bible addresses the issue of the nature of the
ministry in the New Testament Church.
Written by the Apostle Paul under the direction of the Holy Spirit,
these verses help the Corinthians, and through them, all Christians, understand
who and what a minister is. The
Corinthian Christians were not Jews.
Therefore, they were not raised in a home or culture that worshiped God. They did not know the Old Testament. They did not know the synagogue. They knew only the pagan temples and the
rudimentary understanding of the Gospel they were able to learn during Paul’s
two year ministry in Corinth. And they knew Christ. I admire them for
trying to be faithful to Christ in a hostile culture, with very limited
understanding of the Scriptures, and with only novice clergy to lead them in
the faith and worship of God after Paul left.
But I have to recognize the fact that the Corinthians compromised the
Faith. They mixed Christian doctrine
with pagan mythology, and they tried to worship God the way they formerly
worshiped their pagan idols. This brought them into serious trouble, so serious
the Apostle Paul, referring to their corruption of the Lord’s Supper, wrote,
“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor.
11:30). Many are dead because of their
abuse of the things of God.

A
big part of the problem in Corinth
was the large number of self appointed apostles teaching and leading people
into wrong and heretical doctrines and practices. Paul has spent much of the first three
chapters of 1 Corinthians addressing this problem. He started in the very first verse, saying,
he is “called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.” From there he defended and explained his
calling and ministry. He was not
boasting. He was not claiming to be a
great man or trying to force the people to honour him. He was simply telling them he was a real
apostle, called and commissioned by Jesus Christ for this ministry, and the
others in Corinth
who claimed to be apostles, were not. In
chapter two he said the Corinthians can tell a true minister of Christ by the
way he builds upon the foundation Paul laid when he was preaching and teaching
in Corinth. That foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11,
12).

In chapter four
he returns to the issue of his true apostleship and what that means in the way
the people of Corinth
should think of him and the other true Apostles. How should they account the Apostles? How should Christians account any real
minister of the word? The first thing he
says is “let a man so accounts us, as of the ministers of Christ.” It is interesting to read this verse in the
original Greek. We all know that the Latin word from which we derive our
English word “minister” means “servant” or “slave,” and I expected to find the
Greek equivalent for it in 1 Corinthians 4:1.
I was shocked (again) to find that the Greek says, “let a man so account
us as official representatives of Christ.”
Paul is saying something similar to what he wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:20,
where, again, writing about the Apostles and their relationship to the Church
he said, “we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.”

There was
something special and unique about the ministry of the Apostles. They occupied and performed a unique ministry
in the Church and their office ended when the last one, probably John,
died. There are no more Apostles. There is an apostolic ministry in the Church,
and listen very carefully to what I am saying here, because the apostolic
ministry is different from the office of an Apostle. The apostolic ministry is the ministry that
continues to preach and teach the Faith and Practice given to the Church by
Christ through the Apostles. There is
much more that I want to say on this subject, and I hope to return to it
soon. For now I must simply say that a man
who is dully called and ordained, and who preaches and teaches the Apostolic
Faith and Practice, is to be regarded as an official representative of
Christ. He is called and ordained to his
ministry by God through the Church, and God Himself uses that man to lead His
people.

There is another
word in 1 Corinthians 4:1 I want to talk about for a moment, and that word is
“stewards.” A steward is a person who
cares for some one or some thing for the benefit and in the service of
another. In Roman times, which is when
the New Testament was written, it usually referred to a slave who was put in
charge of his master’s property. A
steward had authority from the master to direct the property, and other
servants, for his master and according to the master’s directions. A steward could be in charge of the kitchen,
the house, the estate, or several estates.
There are four main points I want to make about a steward. First, he was installed in his position by
the master. Second, he acted by the
authority of the master. Third, the
property and other servants did not belong to him. Fourth, he was accountable to the master for
his actions. “It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.”

I want to turn
quickly to what the Apostles and those who carry on the Apostolic Faith and
Practice are stewards of. We are
stewards of the mysteries of God. That, in its purest sense, means the
Faith. It is our task to “preach the
word,” as Paul wrote to Timothy. It is
our task to guard and keep the Faith pure, to defend it from enemies. It is not within our authority to change the
faith in any way. It is not ours to change.
We preserve it for our Master.

The Apostolic Faith
and Practice is given to us in the Bible, so we are stewards of the Bible. We are to proclaim its message and to
preserve it unaltered for future generations.
We are to teach all of what Jesus commanded. That is the Apostolic Faith. We are also stewards of the Apostolic
Practice. We are called to preserve the
practice of the Apostles in worship, Church ministry and organisation, and
public and private life as followers of Christ.
We are stewards of the Apostolic Practice, not innovators and inventors
of new and better things.

We are stewards
of the Sacraments. The sacraments are not given to individual Christians; they
are given to the Church. When a person
is baptized he is baptized into the Church, and especially into the local
manifestation of the Church, which is the local congregation. He is not baptized to be a Christian at
large. Sometimes there is no viable
church to attend where a person lives.
Such a person can be a member of a believing church outside of his area,
as many of our Anglican Orthodox members are.
But church membership and participation are important parts of following
Christ. The Lord’s Supper is given to
and celebrated by and in the context of the Church. It is not to be celebrated by random groups
of Christians who happen to meet at the RV park or at the beach. It is celebrated under the authority of the
Church.

Finally, we are
stewards of the Church herself. We are
responsible for leading and teaching the Church in the things of Christ. We are responsible for ordering and
organizing the Church according to the pattern given in Scripture.

I know this is a
brief and sketchy presentation, and each of the points and sub points I have
made today could be a sermon, or a book, or a library of its own. I hope to preach more about them in the
future, especially those which may be easily misunderstood, such as the point I
made about the Apostolic ministry. But I
want to hurry on now to another important point, namely that clergy aren’t the
only ministers and stewards in God’s house.
There is a sense in which the Bishop is the head steward of the Church,
and the priest or deacon is the head steward of the local congregation. But there is another sense in which all
Christians are ministers and stewards of the mysteries of Christ. Let’s go back to the Roman slave who was the
head steward of, say, the master’s house.
Was he the only one charged with seeing that the house ran the way the
master wanted it? No. Every servant in the house was a steward of
something. One may have been steward of
the kitchen. One may have been steward
of the stable. Another was steward of
the furnishings. And all were required
to work together to keep the house for the master. We are all stewards of the Lord’s House. We are all ministers in His Kingdom. Let us be found faithful.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. Amen.

A Prayer for Biblical Understanding

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given to us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

About Me

The Rt. Rev. R. Dennis Campbell is Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church Diocese of Virginia, and Rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church in Powhatan, Virginia. He is the author of two books, He Shall Reign, and Gotta Run, and holds degrees from Southwest Baptist University, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.